


Longing and Belonging

by fiacresgirl



Series: Summer of Sorrow [5]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Coping, F/M, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-17 22:41:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7288945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiacresgirl/pseuds/fiacresgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lyla and Felicity discuss Diggle after a Skype call, and Felicity tells Oliver what she's decided to do about her pregnancy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Longing and Belonging

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AStoryReader](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AStoryReader/gifts).



> I had so much interesting feedback on the last chapter. Thanks, everyone for investing your time and opinions into this series. :)
> 
> This chapter is for AStoryReader. Thanks so much for following along and commenting!

Baby Sara’s diapered bottom bounces up and down in Felicity’s lap as she tries to tell her daddy what she’s been up to over Skype. It’s a challenge for her because her vocabulary is still limited and the visual interface doesn’t allow for a lot of showing. Showing is how Sara gets around the boundaries of what she can say. “Show you,” Sara says at the park when she finds turtles climbing on top of each other in the water. When her doll is sick, Sara brings her to Felicity. “Baby sick,” she says, her toy stethoscope upside down around her neck. “Show you.”

But there’s no showing a daddy who’s not even in the same country right now. Felicity is having a hard time not sharing her opinion of that decision with her friend right now, but she keeps her smile pasted on her face.

“Felicity, put Lyla back on,” Dig says.

Felicity glances over toward Lyla’s bedroom. The door is still closed which means her friend is struggling to keep her composure so she’s removed herself from the situation.

“Mama cry,” Sara says baldly. Dig looks surprised and then stricken, but Felicity doesn’t have an excuse prepared. The fact is, Lyla cries after every phone call. She misses her husband. She tries to show him her put-together self, but this week has been _bad_ at work and potty training Sara is a complete bust. Lyla needs John to be _here_ not wherever the hell he is.

Dig recovers, smiling awkwardly. “Okay, Baby Girl,” he says, “put your arms around yourself like I showed you.”

“No!” Sara says. “No wanna hug self. Wanna Dada hug.”

Dig winces again. “Well, maybe this time, Aunt Felicity can give you my hug.”

Sara shakes her head, but Felicity dutifully wraps her arms around her and squeezes tightly. “There’s Daddy’s hug,” she says and kisses Sara’s head. “And kiss.”

Sara wriggles off of Felicity’s lap. “Bye, Dada,” she says. Felicity begins to close out the app when Dig asks, “How’s Oliver doing?”

“Fine,” Felicity says. “Mayoring. He’s busy.”

“The two of you are still dancing around all this?”

Now Felicity is annoyed. She’s kept this Skype call judgment free so far, despite the fact that there are two girls who are going to need some TLC after she hangs up. “It’s not your business, Dig,” she says.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

“Just take care of yourself,” she says, “and get home when you can. This has been hard on Lyla.”

Guilt weighs down Dig’s face. “I know,” he says.

“You don’t,” Felicity says. “I’ve got to go put Sara to bed. Duck any bullets and keep yourself safe, okay?”

“Okay.”

Felicity sighs and relents. “We miss you.”

“I miss you too. Thanks for taking care of them,” Dig says.

“They’re taking care of me too,” Felicity says. “I’ll talk to you later.” She ends the call and grabs Sara up from the living room floor. It’s time for one little girl she knows to get into her pajamas.

 

>>\--->

 

A half an hour later, after she and Sara have read **The Big Red Barn**  three times and made all of the animal sounds together and Sara’s tucked into her crib, Felicity goes to check on Lyla. She’s sitting on her bed scrolling through her email. Her face is scrubbed, and she looks like she’s pulled it together. Sort of.

“Sara wants to say goodnight to her Mama,” Felicity says.

Lyla closes her laptop. “Thanks for putting her to bed. I know I bailed on you there.”

Felicity sits down on the edge of the bed and puts her hand on Lyla’s wrist. “I almost gave John a piece of my mind,” she says.

“I almost did too,” Lyla admits. “That’s why I left.” She shakes her head. “The Waller stuff at work has gotten intense. Some of the decisions she made before she died…”

“He seemed better,” Felicity says. “His eyes have lost some of that haunted look.”

“The military always agreed with him,” Lyla says, “He does well on a schedule and with less ambiguity. He likes feeling useful. I’m surprised he hasn’t mentioned anyone in particular. Usually it doesn’t take him this long for him to find someone to take someone under his wing.”

“He’s mentioned this kid, Luis, a few times,” Felicity says.

“That will probably be his next project,” Lyla says. “I’ll be glad when he has one. It’ll mean he’s able to look beyond what happened with Andy.” She focuses on Felicity, and puts her other hand over the one on her wrist.

“Have you made up your mind yet?” Lyla asks. “I’m not trying to rush you, but this decision does have a deadline. You’re nine weeks now. It’ll get harder on you if you don’t decide soon.”

There’s no point in dodging the question. Lyla is right. “I think I’ve decided to stay pregnant,” Felicity says. That’s how she thinks about it. She’s pregnant. That’s it, no romanticizing. She’s not ready for this situation to be a baby, but Oliver’s quiet longing has gotten to her. There’s no denying that they’re too connected to each other. Sometimes when she tries to tease out her emotions, she has a hard time deciding which are his and which are hers.

Lyla nods, and Felicity knows that whatever she’d decided that’s what Lyla would have done. They had a long discussion last week about how unplanned Sara had been. “You’ll tell him tonight?”

“I don’t know,” Felicity says. “Once I tell him, he’s going to go all out. I don’t want him to read too much into this about our future together. I need to make my own choices.”

Lyla gives her a pitying look.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just when kids are involved, _my_ changes into _our_ really quick. Sometimes you’re even grateful for it. You’ll find that out.” She presses Felicity’s hand. “You need to tell Oliver. You needed time to make your decision, but if you’ve made it, you have to put him out of his misery.”

Felicity grimaces. “You gonna be okay?”

Lyla chews on her lip - which is about as outwardly insecure as she gets. “Some days you have to be brave, and some days you let yourself be sad. Tomorrow I will get up and face down all of this again, but tonight I’m going to let myself feel disappointed. The U.S. Army and this Luis may need Johnny, but Sara and I do too. It’s just - I married this man twice. I’m not going to divorce him twice. I won’t do it.”

“Does anyone want you to?” Felicity is confused.

Lyla gives an unconscious glance at her cellphone. “My mother is, shall we say, _not a fan_ of this decision to reenlist. She wasn’t impressed by our marriage the first time, she didn’t approve of the divorce, and she thought the fact that I had Sara after that was a grave error in judgment. It doesn’t help that I can’t tell her any of the circumstances of our real lives. She’s jumped to the conclusion that Johnny’s a deadbeat dad. My father was ex-military, a retired colonel, and he liked Johnny, and since he’s been gone, she’s felt a need to weigh in on everything I do.”

Felicity thought about how she had the opposite problem: her mother and Oliver were much more likely to band together against her than fight each other. She’s going to have to swear Oliver to secrecy about the baby because she will not be able to handle their two against one.

“I didn’t think that things would fall apart again so soon after our wedding last year,” Lyla says. “I hate it that’s he’s not here. Even though I’m mad at him, if he were here tonight, I wouldn’t spend the time arguing.” Her smile is slow and sad and too salacious for Felicity’s comfort.

She gets to her feet. “TMI,” she says, glancing at her empty wrist. “Look at the time. You’d better go kiss Sara goodnight. She’s banging her crib against the wall, and you know she won’t go to sleep until you give her some sugar.”

Lyla’s amused face fades to seriousness. “Tell Oliver when you see him tonight,” she says. “Don’t put it off any more. The man deserves to know. He’ll be so happy, and at least one of us will have a productive evening.”

“It can’t be that productive,” Felicity says. “I’m already knocked up. He’s not going to sneak another baby in there.”

“If anyone could,” Lyla says, and Felicity goes to grab her purse.

 

>>\--->

 

Felicity thighs straddle Oliver’s hips as she runs her hands through his hair and places slow, pulling kisses on his soft mouth. His beard is a little bit longer, but the mole in the corner of his lower lip is still visible, and she traces it with her tongue. Oliver’s arms are on her waist, but he’s uncharacteristically stiff. Finally Felicity asks, “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Oliver says, but there’s a hesitation in his voice. She pulls his hands up and puts them on her breasts, but as soon as she lets go, he drops them to his sides.

“Okay, there is something wrong.”

She puts her hands on his neck and begins to rub at the tension there. He stares at the sunset framed by the loft’s enormous wall of glass. It’s reflected in the metallic panes of the skyscraper across from them.  

“What is it?” she asks.

He lifts her off his lap and stands up. “Have you decided yet?” He begins to pace the space between the couch and the kitchen. “I’m going nuts here, Felicity. It’s been a month. I’ve tried to be patient, I’ve tried to give you your space, but this is all I think about. It affects me too.”

“I-I, uh,” she starts to say. It’s passive aggressive, but a part of her really wants to keep control of this. He’s held a lot of information from her in the past. Lyla’s right, though, this isn’t fair.

“I’m, uh, I’m not going to…” His face falls. “I’m not going to stop being pregnant,” she says.

There’s confusion on his face and anger until he works out her meaning, then a wave of joy swamps it. “You’re going to have the baby?”

Felicity presses her hands together and nods. “I guess that’s what I mean. I’ve thought about it, and I don’t know how we’ll work it out, but I can’t… I can’t do the other thing to you.” And she can’t. It really comes down to that. She has her own dreams, but Oliver’s dreams and her dreams grew together inexorably sometime in the past three years. She can’t separate them now without an axe and a great deal of pain.

“We can make it work. We belong together,” Oliver says with complete certainty, his eyes shining. He crosses back to the couch and picks up her hands. “Oh, Felicity.” He grabs her face and kisses her soundly on the lips. She wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him to her. All she wants is Oliver inside of her now. She reaches for his belt buckle and pulls the prong out with her thumb.

“Whoa, whoa there,” Oliver says. “Shouldn’t we do something to celebrate? Something non-alcoholic, of course.”

“I am,” Felicity says. The fact is, the only time she feels fully grounded these days is when Oliver is pushing down on her, into her, with his considerable weight. She climbs back into his lap and plays the pregnancy card. “I’m nine weeks, Oliver. My hormones are going nuts. My brain never turns off either. Make it turn off.”

“Okay,” Oliver says. He unbuttons his dress pants and pulls his shirt and undershirt from the waistband. “If that’s what you--”

“--Also,” she says, “do you think we could have sex like you really, _really_ love me? I know that we haven’t done it that way in awhile, but I kind of need it. I don’t want this baby to have parents who hate each other.”

“Felicity, I do really, really love you,” Oliver says. “Baby or not, that wasn’t going to change. I don’t think it’s even possible for me to hate you.”

She knows it’s impossible for her to hate him. This breakup would have been much easier if she could. She slides off her short skirt and underwear and then eases her way onto him. There. She’s not going anywhere now. When his length is fully inside her, she presses her lips against his and kisses him softly but firmly on the mouth. She sucks on his lower lip. Tears are running down her face, but she doesn’t bother to wipe them away. Despite what she told him, she’s not sexually aroused. She doesn’t even care if she comes - all she wants is to be part of him.

Oliver’s body can do anything. It can run, jump, fight, climb, and fly through the air. His hands fashion arrows and make her forget her name. His smile opens doors and hearts. Oliver’s body has shielded her, protected her, carried her, and cared for her. It’s perhaps the only thing that has never let her down. Oliver’s mind is a twisty thing, confused, confusing, but his body… She wants to crawl up in his body and be a part of him. She feels like that’s the only way she’s ever going to work again - if she becomes part of him.

Oliver’s kisses are feather light all over her shoulders and neck. He’s murmuring soft things in between breaths. “Love you so much… Missed you.” He runs his hands gently up and down her sides. “Please forgive me. Please. Oh god, Felicity.”

She can’t remember when they start to move together or when they stop, but somehow they finish upstairs in the bedroom. He enters from behind as they lay side by side, and he moves lazily in and out. She sighs, sleepy and satisfied, when finally he comes with a faint gasp. His hand rests on her flat stomach, and he caresses her there.

“I called Samantha,” he whispers in her ear as the oxytocin and her mental and physical exhaustion pull her into oblivion. “I’m going to go see my son.”


End file.
